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2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners
The annual award went to these standout reads across several categories.
Published on April 15, 2019
Heads of the Colored People: Stories
Nafissa Thompson-SpiresThis debut has been racking up accolades left and right. At the awards ceremony at the Festival of Books, author Nafissa Thompson-Spires said, “I wrote this book because I felt like as a kid, and even as a grad student, I didn’t see books that reflected the kind of black person I was. … I wanted to write about weird black people.”
Heavy: An American Memoir
Kiese LaymonKiese Laymon’s memoir made just about every best-of books list last year, so it’s not surprising to see it take home the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose. “Heavy” touches on a slew of topics, from obesity to systemic racism to family secrets, that weigh on many contemporary Americans.
Travelers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism: 1919-1945
Julia BoydIt’s a common question among travelers: How much of a country’s true colors do you actually see when you visit? But it’s an utterly fascinating one when considering what it was like to visit Nazi Germany. Julia Boyd won the prize for history with this compilation of riveting snapshots from tourists taking in the Third Reich.
The Poet X
Elizabeth AcevedoPoetry helps first-generation Dominican-American Xiomara cope with society’s sexism and racism, with her mother’s strict religious views, and all the other troubles, big and small, of growing up. An intense story in verse that was crowned for being the best of young adult literature last year.